AROUND THE WORLD.

U.S. warplanes hit anti-aircraft position

January 22, 2002|By Items compiled from Tribune news services.

IRAQ — U.S. warplanes struck an anti-aircraft artillery site Monday in southern Iraq in response to "hostile Iraqi threats" against air crews patrolling the region, military officials said in Washington.

The raid amounted to another in a series of low-level skirmishes with Iraqi forces that have taken place since 1992, when the U.S. established no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq after the Persian Gulf war.

Spokesmen for the U.S. Central Command provided few details about Monday's strike, which they said occurred against an anti-aircraft site in Tailil, about 170 miles southeast of Baghdad.

They said that all aircraft involved returned safely and that the amount of damage done in the raid was being assessed.

"Today's coalition strikes in the no-fly zones were executed as self-defense measures in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts against coalition air crews and their aircraft and are not related to the president's campaign against terrorism," the Central Command said in a statement.